To Have and To Hold Parts 1 thru 6
by Alaina Cabot
Summary: Is there life outside of work? The life of an assistant DA when she is and is not being an assistant DA. AJ pairing. Chapter 6 up and more on the way! sorry it has been so long! please R&R!
1. Default Chapter

Alex threw her pen across the room and sighed deeply. The papers spread over the desk in front of her blended together in a blur of white and chicken scratch. There seemed to be no way to get out of the legal bind she was in; the jury was going to believe Harry Callan's plea of "not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect." She could tell by watching their faces in court that day that she was not getting through to them; she had to find a simpler way to make those twelve people understand that because Callan knew what he was doing when he quit taking his anti-psychotic medication, he was responsible for the fact that he had raped three young women and inadvertently killed one of them. The defense was doing an admirable job of playing the case to the jury's emotions, making them believe that because the side effects of the medication were so undesirable, Callan was not thinking clearly when he quit taking it. The defense claimed that his judgment was impaired because all he could think about was how awful the side effects were.

When she had entered the courtroom that morning, Alex had been determined not to let the situation get out of hand. She had been determined to give the jury so many logical arguments that they would be forced to listen to the facts and not to their emotions.

When she had walked out of the courtroom at 5:30 that evening, she had felt like she had already been defeated, and the prosecution had not even rested yet.

Alex set her glasses on top of the papers and rubbed her face with her hands, pressing her fingers against her eyes. She could tell by the throbbing behind her eyes that the oncoming migraine was going to rob any chance she might have had at sleep that night.

_Oh, well_, she thought. _It's not like I'd really get any sleep tonight anyway. Not at the way I'm bombing this case_.

Sighing again, Alex began to straighten the papers on her desk, shifting them into semi-straight piles and divided up by subject matter. History case files in one pile, Callan's medical history and current files in another pile, witness lists in another pile. She had one loose page that she was not even sure she wanted to keep; it was a brainstorm of possible angles she could use. Alex chewed on her lip. Tomorrow was Wednesday and she had three arraignments; Thursday she had a hearing in family court; and Friday she was prepping two witnesses for a Grand Jury hearing beginning next week. Court was not convening again on the Callan case until Monday; she would have the weekend to research her options. "Fine," she said aloud, giving in to the voice inside that constantly told her she was going to need all the help she could get. She set the paper on top of the pile of things to go in her briefcase.

Pushing back from her desk, she got up from her chair and walked to the other side of the office to pick up the pen. Throwing a pen was the most she ever did to outwardly show her frustration; even then, she felt the need to apologize to someone, anyone, for what she considered "losing her temper."

As she stepped behind her desk and began packing her things into her soft leather briefcase, the phone on the corner of the desk rang. Startled, Alex jumped but automatically reached to pick it up.

"D.A.'s office."

"Alex, it's Olivia."

"Hey."

"Can you come down to the station? We found Jeffrey Nelson."

"Really?? Where?" "

You don't wanna know."

"Uh, okay, well..." Alex glanced over her desk. She knew she needed to take a break from it anyway.

"He lawyered up right away; won't say a word. We told his lawyer, fine, we'll just keep Jeffrey here overnight, but he wants to talk to you. Alex... he acts like he knows you. He seems to think you'll do him a favor or something."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Thanks." Click.

Alex hung up the phone and frowned. She knew her share of defense attorneys from law school, even a few from undergraduate; but it was strange for one of them to think she would do them a "favor." They knew she had to do her job just as well as she knew they had to do their job. From the tone in Olivia's voice, the whole situation felt... odd.

Making sure everything for tomorrow's arraignments was in her briefcase so she could do a last-minute review that night, Alex took both the briefcase and her purse and grabbed her coat on the way out of her office. Not certain that she'd have the energy to come back tonight, she locked the door behind her before heading for the elevator. She hated elevators, but at night she hated the stairwell more. That was the worst part of being on the sixth floor: nights.

In the empty elevator, she set her purse and briefcase down so that she could put on her coat. When the doors opened on the garage level, she grabbed her purse and briefcase and hurried to get out of the elevator. She did not even bother to struggle with the buttons on her coat on the way to her car, and she did not open the passenger door to throw her things on the seat as she did when it was daylight. She unlocked the driver's side door with her remote just as she got to the car, and slid quickly in, locking the door before she put her briefcase on the passenger side floor and her purse in the seat. 

At the precinct, Alex parked under the streetlight, right behind Elliot Stabler's car. She grabbed her briefcase as she got out of the car, more for security than the thought that she might actually need it.

"Alex." Olivia got up from her desk as the A.D.A. entered the room. "He's in interrogation. Hang on a sec while I get Cragen." Olivia turned and went to the out-of-the-way door of the Captain's office.

"Isn't it past your bedtime, Counselor?"

Alex turned at the sound of the familiar voice. "John. I don't see how you could know that; I know it's past yours."

"That hurts, Miss Cabot." Munch put a hand on his heart and a somber look on his face. Alex bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. If he thought she found him funny, he would only be encouraged.

"Interesting. And all this time I thought you were a man of steel."

Munch opened his mouth to reply, but Olivia returned with Cragen beside her.

"Alex." The Captain nodded to her. "We have Nelson in the interrogation room with his lawyer. I wanted to be there when you talk to him. Elliot and Olivia tried to talk to him, but his lawyer has him sealing his lips. He'll have to talk to you if he wants a chance at anything less than twenty-five years to life."

Alex nodded. "Let's go."

As she passed Munch, the sleeve of his sports jacket barely brushed her arm.

"We'll finish this later, Miss Cabot," he whispered.

Alex did not even acknowledge that she had heard him, as she followed Cragen, Olivia, and Elliot back to interrogation.


	2. Chapter 2

Alex suppressed the shudder until they had rounded the corner. Olivia glanced sideways at her but did not say a word. Alex hoped silently to herself that she had not noticed the whispered comment from Munch.

In the outer room of interrogation, Alex could see through the two-way mirror to where Jeffrey Nelson sat facing them. His attorney sat at the end of the table, around the corner from Jeffrey, and he was facing his client. Alex could not see his face.

"Come on," she said softly.

"Counselor?" Cragen turned to look at her.

"Nothing. Sorry." The Captain turned back to the glass, not thinking about it again; but Olivia gazed at Alex for a few seconds. Alex raised her eyebrows at the detective, who looked back toward the interrogation room, but not before letting the A.D.A. know that she was not falling for the "Nothing" comment.  
  
Alex shifted her eyes back to the glass and gasped. Cragen and Benson looked at her simultaneously, but she did not seem to notice; hand to her mouth, she was staring intently at the attorney in the interrogation room, who had turned his face just enough to be visible through the two-way mirror.

"Alex." Olivia stepped toward her, holding a hand out. "Maybe you'd better sit down."

"No, I'm... I'm fine." Alex could not tear her eyes from the man behind the glass.

"Alex, your face just got three shades whiter in less than a second. Do you feel like you're gonna pass out?"

Alex blinked and bit her lip, then let her gaze drop to the floor before looking up at Benson. "Sorry. No, I'm okay. Let's go talk to him."

Benson nodded. "All right." She opened the door and let Alex walk through, then followed her, shutting the door behind them.

Jeffrey did not look up as they entered the room, but continued to stare sullenly at his hands resting on the table. The man in the suit, however, rose from his seat and came toward them with a smile that looked staged.

"Alex," he said, stretching a hand toward her. "It's been a long time."

_Not long enough_. She wanted so badly to say it out loud, but she bit it back and politely took his hand.

"I've been waiting for you.

" Not "we," not "my client," but "I." Even if no one else knew or caught the significance, Alex did. She had never met another attorney that she disliked as much as she did Nathan Tate. She had met some attorneys who were not great at their jobs or who did not even attempt to hide the fact that they were in the field only for the money, but with Nathan Tate, it was personal.

Alex sat down at the table while Olivia leaned back against the glass, crossing her legs at the ankles and her arms over her chest.

"So, what's so important that it couldn't wait until morning?"

* * *

As she stepped out of the interrogation room, Alex took a deep breath and tried to regain the composure that she had barely been holding onto for the past hour. Who did Nathan Tate think he was, expecting her to literally hand him an acquittal like that?

The problem was, Alex knew exactly why he thought he could get her to let his client walk away. And she was not planning to let him get away with it.  
  
_You've just been lucky not to have butted legal heads with him in the last five years_, she told herself. Still, she had known that this day would come.

"Alex." Olivia's voice behind her startled her. She turned around as the detective approached her. "What was going on in there?" Olivia asked quietly as the neared the doorway to the office area.

"Nothing," Alex said, trying to sound innocent. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, Alex, there was definitely something going on in there. Cragen might not have seen it, but that doesn't mean nothing was going on." Olivia paused for a second. "Was he threatening you?" she finally said, so softly that she was almost whispering. Still, Alex glanced around to make sure no one could hear their conversation. That action alone gave Olivia all the confirmation she needed. "It's ten o'clock and you probably haven't eaten all day. Let's go get something to eat." She did not give Alex a chance to agree or disagree, just grabbed both of their coats from her chair, shoved a stack of papers into one of her desk drawers, and dragged Alex out the door.

Alex could feel John Munch's eyes on her as they passed him. She avoided meeting his gaze and was glad that Olivia was so intent on getting her out of the station that she was not paying any attention to the other detective.

"Okay, Alex, talk," Olivia said after they were seated in a booth in a restaurant not far from the precinct and had ordered. The waitress had barely walked away when Olivia gave the order. 

"Liv, it's nothing. Really."

Olivia just looked at her for a moment. "We're friends, Alex. We're supposed to be able to trust each other."

Alex sighed. Why did it always have to boil down to a trust issue? "It has nothing to do with trusting you. It has everything to do with not trusting myself."

"Okay, I'll play. It's fairly obvious that I was right and you two already knew each other. It was also pretty obvious in that interrogation room that he was trying to force you, one way or another, to let Jeffrey Nelson off the hook."

Alex winced. Olivia noticed.

"Okay, I'm two for two. What else?" She seemed to be thinking for a moment. "Alex... did he hurt you? Or does he have something on you, I mean really have some dirt on you? Because I can't think of any other reason for him to act so cocky in there."

Alex just looked at her, and though her face was expressionless, Olivia could tell by her eyes that she was trying to decide whether or not to confide in her. Finally, she spoke.

"You have to promise me that you aren't going to say a word to anyone. I couldn't do my job if anyone knew."

"You know I won't tell anyone. I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

Alex inhaled deeply and held it. "We... went to law school together. We were in moot court together a few times. He asked me out but... I wasn't interested in dating at the time; I was too busy trying to keep up with my classes and everything. He didn't take too well to me saying no; I think he took it as a personal rejection, which it wasn't... at least not at the time. He asked me a second time, and I... turned him down again. He really didn't like that." Alex tried to smile wryly at Olivia, but the serious look on the detective's face told her that she was not going to be able to joke her way through this story.

Taking a sip of her water, Alex continued. "He had come up to my dorm room to ask me out the second time. I don't know; maybe he thought if it was more... in private... I might say yes; he just didn't get it that I needed all my time for my classes." Alex let out a shaky breath and forced back the tears. "He... I didn't invite him in; just let him ask me at the door, and told him no at the door. I told him I had a Tariffs test to study for, and I started to shut my door but... he forced his way in."

Alex could feel the tears welling up behind her eyes. She could not do this; she could not let herself cry. Not here. Not about this.

"Anyway, it was a long time ago."

"You never told anyone."

Alex steadily and stubbornly held Olivia's gaze.

"That's why he can still hold it over your head, Alex; don't you get it?"

"He can't hold it over my head; I'm not letting him."

"He's still using it to control you. Even if it doesn't get him what he wants in court, he's still controlling you emotionally. That's what he wants, Alex. You can't let him do this to you."

"I don't have much of a choice, Olivia. If people knew... my career would be over. I'd never work Special Victim's cases again."

Olivia was silent. The waitress came with Olivia's chicken stir fry and Alex's salad. Olivia began eating immediately, but Alex fiddled with her napkin on her lap, and then just poked at her lettuce with her fork.

After a couple of bites, Olivia looked at the A.D.A. thoughtfully. "That's why you haven't dated since you've come here, isn't it?"

Alex shrugged. She hated admitting that one man could keep her from ever letting anyone get close again.

Olivia nodded. "People have wondered, you know. If something happened or..." she stopped abruptly and took another bite.

Alex rolled her eyes. She knew the rest of Olivia's thought. She had heard the talk, but had let it blow over her head. She knew people were going to say and think whatever they wanted to, regardless of what she had to say on her own behalf. She took a bite of her salad and a sip of her water.

A couple of minutes of silence passed as Olivia ate and Alex continued to push lettuce and spinach and tomatoes around in the dressing on her plate.

"What did Munch say to you tonight?"

Alex jerked her head up. "What do you mean?" she asked quickly. She could feel her face beginning to feel warm.

Olivia smirked. "You know exactly what I mean. Does he like you?"

"I... don't know. I haven't honestly thought about it."

"Well, has he been flirting with you?"

Alex paused as she thought back over the past couple of weeks. "Yeah," she said, sounding almost incredulous. "I guess he has."

Olivia grinned. "You'd be good for him, Alex. He needs someone who can keep his feet firmly on the ground."

The blush in Alex's cheeks deepened. "His feet are firmly on the ground. Besides..." she tried to think of a reason to dismiss him. "He's too old for me," she finally said. It was the only excuse she could come up with, other than the obvious.

"Is that the best you can do?" Olivia asked with a mischievous purse of her lips.


	4. Chapter 4

Alex took a deep breath as she heaved open the door to the precinct. All business, she entered the building and went down the short hall and few steps that led her to the open office. Munch, Benson, and Stabler were at their desks, Munch engrossed in a report on his computer screen, Benson on the phone trying to calm someone down, Stabler crouched over several layers of papers with a pen in one hand. A glance at Cragen's closed door told Alex where Tutuola probably was.

Alex softly cleared her throat. Ideally, she wanted to get Olivia's attention and no one else's, but in this office, that would have been nothing short of a miracle, especially since Olivia was the one on the phone.

Normally, the mere entrance of a person into the precinct would not be nearly enough to draw Munch's attention from his computer. But when it came to Alex, it seemed like he had an extra sense. His gaze was halfway to hers before she even finished clearing her throat. Stabler finished reading the paragraph he was on before looking up, and Olivia did not even acknowledge that she knew Alex was there. Both reactions were typical of detectives in their field and positions; Munch's reaction was non-typical of both his personality and his vocational position.

Alex had to consciously keep herself from reacting to the fact that Munch's attention had shifted so completely to her. She looked at Elliot, whose face told her that he was trying to figure out why she was pointedly ignoring Munch while he intently watched her. Alex swallowed and stepped forward, making a beeline to Benson's desk.

Olivia mercifully hung up the phone before Alex reached her desk. Turning her chair, the detective smiled sweetly at Alex with a mischievous look in her eyes. Afraid she would make a comment, Alex plunged into the point of her presence at the station.

"I need you to question a possible witness in the Haley case."

Benson nodded as she chewed on her lip. She not-so-discreetly glanced over Alex's shoulder, and when her eyes returned to meet the A.D.A.'s, Alex could tell that she was trying to hold in a grin.

"Shouldn't be a problem. Had Munch yet?"

Alex gasped. Had Olivia just said that out loud?

"What did you say?"

Olivia raised one eyebrow and tilted her head slightly as if she were about to ask what drugs Alex was taking. "I said, have you had lunch yet? I thought we could go grab something and discuss your witness."

Alex's head was spinning. Maybe she should be taking drugs. Probably some sleep at night would not hurt either. "Sorry. No I haven't had lunch yet. Let's hit the Corner Cup." Benson nodded and grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair without taking her eyes off of Alex.

Once outside, the detective dared to speak. "Are you doing okay, Alex?"

Alex turned her head abruptly, as if Olivia's voice had startled her. "Yeah, sorry. I'm just really tired, that's all."

"Are you sure that's all? Because you're acting kind of weird."

_Go ahead. Tell her you can't stop thinking about one of her co-workers. Yeah. Right._

"Yeah, I'm sure."

* * *

They were seated in the back booth at the cafe and Olivia had ordered before either of them spoke again. 

"Aren't you going to eat?"

Alex sighed. She had known Olivia would get on her case. "I just don't have an appetite lately. Maybe it's the stress of my case load right now; I don't know."

"Uh huh."

Alex took a drink of her ice water, hiding behind the frosty glass. "Well..." But she could not come up with a credible response to what she knew Olivia was thinking.

"Come on, your case load might be a little heavier than usual, but it's not the heaviest it's ever been."

Alex nodded ruefully. "Yeah, I know. I just keep telling myself that that's all it could be."

Olivia slowly shook her head.

"What?"

"Well... it's just that, it's so obvious to me. So why are you wasting the energy denying the truth to yourself?"

"I'm hoping that it's just a phase that will pass with time. Very little time. Especially if I ignore it."

"I don't think so."

"I'm starting to realize that I don't think so, either."

"Good."

"What? Why are you so interested?"

Olivia shrugged. "What can I say? I just think the two of you would make a perfect couple."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious. You know why his other marriages failed, don't you?"

"I'm sure you'll be happy to enlighten me."

"Those women didn't even come close to matching him in brains, wits, or strength."

"He is very strong, isn't he, in his own quiet way..." Alex let her voice trail off as she grew pensive.

"Seriously, I think you have just the right personality and character traits to mix with his perfectly. You're strong and bold, but not over-powering. You're incredibly intelligent, practical, and know exactly where you stand on virtually every issue known to mankind. He needs someone who can stand on her own two feet, not someone who has to depend on him to tell her how to think. But you are also sensitive and thoughtful, even if it doesn't show in court." Olivia watched her for a reaction, which she got when Alex frowned disapprovingly at the comment. "Well, you know that you can't let it show, or you would be taken advantage of. Munch knows it, too; don't worry."

"Who said anything about being worried?"

Olivia chuckled. "So if he asked you out, you would say yes. Right?"

Alex looked over Olivia's shoulder for a moment, a thoughtful look drowning her delicate features. "Maybe."


	5. Chapter 5

_Dear Alex,  
  
I know now that I am more like you than I thought I was. I see everything through the  
eyes of the law. I see everything in legal terms. I measure right and wrong, truth and lies,   
correct and incorrect, by how much physical evidence is available in regards to the   
particular situation.  
  
I realize that this is the aspect of Mother's personality that allows you to be the incredible   
attorney that you are, especially in the office you are in. However, at this particular time,   
I consider the fact that I, too, inherited this trait a curse.  
  
Everything is pretty much the same. Daddy is still trying to hold together Drew's business   
by its few threads. You know how determined he is to prove that they can make this work.   
I truly believe he will hold it together until the day he dies... but after that... well, I just   
don't know if Drew would be able to keep himself in business if it weren't for Daddy.  
  
Mother still just nods with that fake "smile of denial" whenever Daddy talks about the   
business and what they need to change in order for the business to start making money   
instead of just barely enough to support itself. I hate it when she does that. She doesn't   
even try to look like she cares, and she should care. After all, it is her son's future at   
stake. The... other thing... hasn't gotten any better either.  
  
Sometimes I wish I weren't part of this family, since most of the time that's how it feels   
anyway.  
  
I hope everything is going better in New York than it is in Chicago. We all miss you. I miss   
you the most. The day after high school graduation, I'm on a plane to NYC.  
  
LYS,  
  
Lainey_

* * *

Alex sighed as she set aside the letter from her little sister. The only thing she had regretted about taking the job with the New York City D.A.'s office right out of law school, was the fact that she had had to leave her sister half way across the country with their parents. Their brother was there too, but he was so immersed in trying to get his business to be self- sufficient that he did not have much time to look out for the well-being of his younger sister. It was not that he did not care about her; he was just busy, and Alex did not hold him responsible for looking after Alaina. 

It was herself she had always placed that burden on.

Once the initial feelings of over-protectiveness and guilt for not being there had faded, Alex picked the letter up again, this time reading between the lines. Alaina's letters always said more than just what she wrote with her pen.

She was not sure what the first two paragraphs meant, but they did worry her. The paragraph about their dad told her that Alaina still saw him through rose-colored glasses. She had been too young during their father's abusive days to realize that he had a temper that could make a grown man cower.

The paragraph about their mother told Alex that Alaina was upset by her mother's behavior more than she would let on. Alex knew what "the other thing" was, and the fact that her sister would not discuss it beyond the fact that it had not changed bothered Alex very much. Alaina was too apt to bury her feelings, pretend that she did not notice things or that they did not bother her, in order to keep peace for the rest of her family. With Alaina's weekly and sometimes daily letters, Alex was seeing the tendency more and more in her sister, and she did not like it.

When she returned the letter, Alex would have to remember to ask how much time Alaina would have off of school for Thanksgiving. Maybe if she paid for the plane ticket, her mother could be convinced to allow Alaina to spend the holiday in New York. Alaina wanted to come anyway, to see New York and to see Alex, and to spend some time in the D.A.'s office, to see if she really wanted to follow her sister's path as she had thought she wanted to for the past 3 years.  
  
_And she could meet John and I could get her opinion._  
  
Now where on earth had that thought come from?


	6. Chapter 6

Alex blinked her eyes open against the darkness, striking the alarm clock so hard that it nearly flew off the bedside table. She bolted upright in her bed, breathing hard and fumbling around for the lamp switch. When her fingers found it, she quickly turned it on. As she began to realize she was not, in fact, in her old college dorm room, but rather, in her own apartment bedroom 5 years later, her breathing began to calm. When she was no longer gasping for oxygen as a fish on land gasps for water, she rose from her bed and moved weakly into the adjoining bathroom.

The face that met her in the mirror was a frightening one: her pale eyes, wide with fear, were sunken into their hollow sockets, outlined by dark circles from night after night of sleeplessness. Her face was framed by her pale hair matted with sweat against her hairline, and her face was flushed to the color of her newly bleached sheets. Her lips, dry and cracked from her breathing, were as white as her face. Her first thought was that she dreaded going to the office that day.

_It's Sunday,_ she suddenly remembered. _No office today, and tomorrow is the start of a short week._

Thank goodness for that. Maybe next weekend, an extended one due to the holiday, she could catch up on her sleep.

Even as she thought it, she knew it was a preposterous contemplation. In five years, she had never for a single night slept as soundly or as peacefully as she had in the previous 23 years. But now it was worse. It had officially been three weeks since she had slept through the night, and it was getting old. It was becoming a daily game to figure out how to hide the aftermath of her nights from her co-workers. With each consecutive insomniac night, it was getting more and more difficult to hide the fact that something was not right. More people noticed every day, and tomorrow, for the first time in over a week, her presence was required at the precinct. She knew she would never hide something like this from Elliot and Olivia.

"Well, that's tomorrow's problem," she said aloud as she turned on the faucet. She splashed ice-cold water on her face and ran a comb through her hair, tying it back off her sweat-coated neck. She turned back into her bedroom, crossed to her bed, and looked at the clock for the first time since lying down the night before. As exhausted as she was, seeing the time only made her more tired. Two-thirty. "I got to sleep in today," she murmured bitterly. She could lie down again, crawl back under the covers, nestle into the crisp sheets, and try to go back to sleep. But she knew from experience, sleep would not come easily or peacefully. She might as well do something useful.

Tugging a sweatshirt over her head, she switched on the hall light and moved down the hall to the office just off the living room. She turned on the main room light, as well as the small lamp sitting on the edge of the desk. She could not have enough light when it came to being alone, whether it was the middle of the night or any other time of the day. She turned on the laptop that was still sitting open on the desk from the work she had done the previous afternoon. As it booted up, she padded through the living room into the kitchen, where she took a bottled water and a half-filled container of cottage cheese from the refrigerator. Snatching a spoon from the drain rack on the counter, she thought wryly of the irony that she never had enough dishes to put to use the brand new dishwasher that she would not have had time to fill anyway.

Sitting at the desk in front of her laptop, she set the water and cottage cheese to one side and spread papers across the empty space on the other side of the computer.

Three hours later, the words on the papers were swimming in pools of black and white alphabet soup, and the words on her computer screen were blurring like a poorly taken picture left out in the rain. Setting her glasses on the legal pad in front of her, Alex rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and yawned. The empty water bottle and three others were lined up across the front of her desk like soldiers; her coffee mug had long since occupied the space to her right.

Pushing back in her chair, Alex rose and delicately set her glasses on her nose once again. She still had much to do, but her eyes and neck were desperately protesting against proceeding further without a break.

In the kitchen, she took a bowl and spoon from the drain rack, soy milk from the refrigerator, and a box of Cracklin' Oat Bran from the cupboard. She took the armload to the living room, where she set everything down on the coffee table before collapsing on the black leather couch. She grabbed the remote in her left hand and clicked on the t.v., while pouring cereal into the bowl with her right. The first fifteen channels were infomercials and early morning news, the two last things she was in the mood to watch right now. She finally found a channel that was showing _Casablanca_, her favorite old movie. Settling back against the leather pillows, she drew a quilt over her lap, and took a bite of cereal.


End file.
